Hampton Inn San Francisco Downtown/Convention Center
A downtown base with a rooftop terrace and 24-hour lobby coffee, hampered by persistently unreliable elevators.
The verdict
Pick a traveller type to re-weight the scores and re-rank the rooms around what you actually care about.
This hotel provides decent, spacious rooms and a rooftop terrace that offers views over the city, alongside free coffee in the lobby at all hours. Its location is close to downtown attractions and transit, but street conditions make some guests uncomfortable at night. The biggest issue is the elevators, which repeatedly break down, move slowly, and force guests onto the stairs. 51163
Every line below traces back to something a traveler actually wrote — open a line to read the original sentence and follow it to the source.
What travelers noticed
- Guests appreciate the rooftop terrace for its views over the city as well as the free 24-hour coffee provided in the lobby. 5
- Rooms are generally described as decent and spacious, featuring comfortable beds and large bathrooms. drawn from the full read
- The elevators draw universal frustration for taking an eternity to arrive, breaking down, or needing repair crews. drawn from the full read
- Guests note that when the elevators fail, taking the spiral stairs or walking through the employee lounge is inconvenient. 65
The catch
- Reviewers disagree on the safety of the surrounding area, with some finding it sketchy late at night while others call the location ideal and safe. 6
- While one traveler liked entering the floor number before entering the elevator, others found the lifts made them nervous due to mechanical issues. 11
Who it's for
- — Guests comfortable taking the stairs
- — Sightseers wanting rooftop city views
- — Travelers who appreciate 24-hour lobby coffee
Skip it if
- — Guests with mobility limitations
- — Travelers frustrated by slow or broken elevators
- — Anyone uneasy about late-night neighborhood safety
How to book
Score breakdown
How the 72/100 is built, category by category — each one with the strongest thing travelers actually said, and the source it came from.
Bathroom
87Nothing quotable yet on this one — the score leans on the rest of the coverage.
Food
78- “We stay at the Cornell a lot. It is a European style hotel (meaning small rooms) but has an excellent French restaurant on the premises, and usually offers packages that include your breafast and dinner with thehotel rate.” 5
- “Awesome Italian restaurant in the building. Go out the front door, go left about 3 blocks and watch for the car rental place on your left.” 5
Location
72Noise
91- “One odd thing I liked was that you entered your floor number before entering the elevator, so it would take you straight to your floor.” 11
- “It had an odd smell to the room (and the same smell was in my coworkers' rooms), the elevator was an old style elevator and took forever and didn't always work, the stairs were spiral like (difficult to carry things up the stairs and with a slow or non-functioning elevator) and the free cookies each day were as hard as a rock.” 5
Room
76Service
82- “My wife and I spent four nights in the Hotel Monaco just off Union Square in the Fall of '04. Absolutely spectacular! Spotlessly clean, beautifully decorated, and the staff was amazing.” 5
- “My wife and I spent four nights in the Hotel Monaco just off Union Square in the Fall of '04. Absolutely spectacular! Spotlessly clean, beautifully decorated, and the staff was amazing. Great access to everything. Highly recommended.” 5
Bed & Sleep
79Nothing quotable yet on this one — the score leans on the rest of the coverage.
Value
71- “Are you driving to SF? If so, we stayed at La Quinta last time. Its by the airport which isn't so great (ie not downtown), but the hotel was nice, people very friendly & the cost for overnight included a buffet breakfast, a taxi to the ship & free parking for our car while we were on the ship. It was a great deal!” 5
- “The downside was breakfast. This was before Hilton started the dining credit, but Parc 55 was ahead of the curve. Honors Gold only got a $10 credit for breakfast, which just so happened to be the same price to get a coffee and 3 pastry items at the to-go breakfast station.” 11
Where it is, how to reach it
Details checked 2026-09-10
Where it sits
Hampton Inn San Francisco Downtown/Convention Center and the 33 other hotels we cover in San Francisco. Hover a marker for the hotel; click to open it.
Stay value
How this property reads against the hotels we cover alongside it. Measured on review evidence, not on a nightly rate.
Falls short of what $$ usually buys
Scores 14 points below the mid-range median of 86, across 655 hotels in the same bracket. In San Francisco it sits 10 points below the local median of 82.
- This hotel
- 72
- Bracket median
- 86
- Index median
- 86
Based on 655 comparable hotels.
Which room to ask for
What reviewers say about where to sleep inside this building — by room number where one is named, and otherwise by floor, wing, aspect and position. Every line opens onto the quotes behind it.
- 1 mention
- 1 mention
No location within the hotel draws repeated complaints yet.
Where travelers agree — and don’t
The topics reviewers split on most. A wide bar means your experience depends on which room you get — or whose opinion you trust.
View the 39 things travelers said behind this verdict▾
Quotes run exactly as travelers wrote them — spelling and all. We trim for length, never for tidiness.
- “We are staying at the Crowne Plaza in Union Square for $99 a night. You are not told where you are staying until you actually follow through with the booking but we took the risk and were quite pleased with the result. It seems to be very well located.” 5
- “Are you driving to SF? If so, we stayed at La Quinta last time. Its by the airport which isn't so great (ie not downtown), but the hotel was nice, people very friendly & the cost for overnight included a buffet breakfast, a taxi to the ship & free parking for our car while we were on the ship.” 5
- “Financial District in my opinion is the safest location, but the hotel itself is just okay.” 11
- “Financial district is in a "better" location but when it comes to the property itself, it's a level below.” 11
- “Financial District in my opinion is the safest location, but the hotel itself is just okay. Rooms are outdated.” 11
- “Financial district is good if you want to be near Chinatown or obviously the financial district.” 11
- “Your hotel is in a pretty area by the harbor. You can walk to the harbor, you can walk to little Italy for food.” 6
- “The Hyatt Regency was a fantastic hotel and a wonderful location.” 5
- “I actually stayed at the Chancellor Hotel about 4 years ago. The hotel has a great location but of all the hotels I have stayed at in the last decade, this would be my least favorite and not one that I would book again.” 5
- “You can walk to the harbor, you can walk to little Italy for food. You have a real bonus with a trolley stop at the back of the hotel, which is the quickest and most convenient way to get back and forth.” 6
- “We stayed at the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf the day before we left on our cruise last July. You can walk anywhere easily in the Wharf area. Lots of good restaurants and sights. It's also just a short walk to the cable car station where you can hop one to downtown SF. We used credit card reward points for our room but it was a fabulous corner unit.” 5
- “Personally, I'd stay in the Financial District, even though the hotel isn't as nice, you're in an area that's extremely gentrified/modern/clean (to an extent where would feel comfortable walking around at night alone).” 11
- “MassiveConcern • 4y ago We have always liked the Parc 55. We have always liked the Parc 55. The location is great, I've never felt unsafe even walking to dinner nearby (within 4 or 5 blocks).” 11
- “My wife and I spent four nights in the Hotel Monaco just off Union Square in the Fall of '04. Absolutely spectacular! Spotlessly clean, beautifully decorated, and the staff was amazing. Great access to everything. Highly recommended.” 5
- “Stayed at the Financial District Hilton in July before a cruise. Got upgraded to a nice view. However my wife was taken aback by a drugged out homeless person wandering the hall on our floor.” 11
- “Rubber ducks in the bathroom, umbrellas in every room, free fresh baked cookies, fruit, and coffee in the lobby, friendly staff, and great location make it the BEST!!” 5
- “There is a streetcar, but they are not very luggage friendly. We stayed at a cozy little hotel called The Cartwright http://www.cartwrighthotel.com/ It had such nice rooms, good service, located at union square and reasonably priced too.:)” 5
- “Got upgraded to a nice view. However my wife was taken aback by a drugged out homeless person wandering the hall on our floor.” 11
- “Oh and the elevators worked about half the time so the other half we had to take the stairs which goes through the employee lounge.” 6
- “My wife and I spent four nights in the Hotel Monaco just off Union Square in the Fall of '04. Absolutely spectacular! Spotlessly clean, beautifully decorated, and the staff was amazing.” 5
- “Are you driving to SF? If so, we stayed at La Quinta last time. Its by the airport which isn't so great (ie not downtown), but the hotel was nice, people very friendly & the cost for overnight included a buffet breakfast, a taxi to the ship & free parking for our car while we were on the ship.” 5
- “My husband and I stayed there 2 years ago and were followed back by a mentally ill homeless person at 1am. Front desk let the man in and didn't do anything so we had to take the stairs to escape him.” 6
- “It was a sneaky way of them still providing breakfast. At the time, I was annoyed because the options were underwhelming, but now I'd be happy to have breakfast covered completely by the new "flexible" dining credit.” 11
- “We stay at the Cornell a lot. It is a European style hotel (meaning small rooms) but has an excellent French restaurant on the premises, and usually offers packages that include your breafast and dinner with thehotel rate.” 5
- “My partner and I had the full breakfast buffet one day. As diamond members, we got an $18 credit per person...but the total bill after tax and tip was damn near $90 (before the credit was applied). Without the credit, it's a hard pass from me.” 11
- “Breakfast credits for 2 people barely covered 1 person. Don't recommend at all.” 11
- “Stayed at Parc 55 back in Oct and was not a great experience. Rooms were old. Breakfast credits for 2 people barely covered 1 person.” 11
- “Awesome Italian restaurant in the building. Go out the front door, go left about 3 blocks and watch for the car rental place on your left.” 5
- “Are you driving to SF? If so, we stayed at La Quinta last time. Its by the airport which isn't so great (ie not downtown), but the hotel was nice, people very friendly & the cost for overnight included a buffet breakfast, a taxi to the ship & free parking for our car while we were on the ship. It was a great deal!” 5
- “The room was perfectly fine, as the hotel was deserted I had a nice Coit tower view on a high floor, but my god those elevators take an eternity to come. Just arrived at my room in financial district hilton and its definitely not 4 stars and definitely not worth the money i paid” 11
- “The downside was breakfast. This was before Hilton started the dining credit, but Parc 55 was ahead of the curve. Honors Gold only got a $10 credit for breakfast, which just so happened to be the same price to get a coffee and 3 pastry items at the to-go breakfast station.” 11
- “The room was spacious for a week and close enough to Moscone for a conference I was attending.” 11
- “The room was perfectly fine, as the hotel was deserted I had a nice Coit tower view on a high floor, but my god those elevators take an eternity to come.” 11
- “It had an odd smell to the room (and the same smell was in my coworkers' rooms), the elevator was an old style elevator and took forever and didn't always work, the stairs were spiral like (difficult to carry things up the stairs and with a slow or non-functioning elevator) and the free cookies each day were as hard as a rock.” 5
- “I stayed there last year. The area is ideal, the room is decent, the elevators made me hella nervous and on my last day there they had a crew there fixing 2 of them.” 6
- “I stayed in Parc 55 pre-COVID and it was fine. The room was spacious for a week and close enough to Moscone for a conference I was attending.” 11
- “One odd thing I liked was that you entered your floor number before entering the elevator, so it would take you straight to your floor.” 11
- “It had an odd smell to the room (and the same smell was in my coworkers' rooms), the elevator was an old style elevator and took forever and didn't always work, the stairs were spiral like (difficult to carry things up the stairs and with a slow or non-functioning elevator) and the free cookies each day were as hard as a rock.” 5
- “View tip: the fire stairs are outside. Great views.” 11
What we still don't know
What we can’t tell you yet, said plainly. These close as we read more coverage of this hotel.
- No reviewer has named an individual room number here yet.
- Nothing reliable said about room types.
- Nothing reliable said about building or wing.
- Nothing reliable said about view.
- Food rests on 2 sources — too thin to rely on.
- Noise rests on 2 sources — too thin to rely on.
- 6 sources carry no publication date, so we cannot tell how current they are.
Ask about Hampton Inn San Francisco Downtown/Convention Center
Answered only from the coverage cited on this page. If nobody has written about your question, it will say so rather than guess.
How much we read
Deep coverage · 48/100We read 13 sources for this property, and pulled 64 traveler insights worth knowing. Last checked 2026-09-11.
Watch this hotel
We keep reading Hampton Inn San Francisco Downtown/Convention Center. Tell us when you're staying and we'll follow it until then — you'll hear from us only when the verdict is rewritten, the score moves, or new reviews land. No daily mail, and the watch closes itself after your stay.
Sources
Everything quoted on this page, grouped by traveler insights, outlets, and video & podcast. Counts beside each group show everything we’ve read of that kind; no one kind can carry the score on its own.
4 of 6 summary lines above are traced to specific quotes. The rest summarise the read as a whole rather than any single document.
View all 13 cited sources▾
Everything quoted on this page.
- 9
- 7
- 6Anyone ever stay at the Hampton Inn in Downtown San ...reddit.comForum thread2025-04-16Recent10 quotes used
“Maybe it's changed since then but if you're planning to stay there I would recommend making sure you're in the hotel by 10pm at latest since the surrounding area is sketchy.”
Read originalreddit.com - 4
- 11San Francisco Hilton : r/Hiltonreddit.comForum thread2023-01-04Ageing26 quotes used
“It was a sneaky way of them still providing breakfast. At the time, I was annoyed because the options were underwhelming, but now I'd be happy to have breakfast covered completely by the new "flexible" dining credit.”
Read originalreddit.com - 12Ask SF, what's the best Hampton Inn to stay at to get the full ...reddit.comForum thread2014-03-07AgeingRead originalreddit.com
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